


arrival

by loyaulte_me_lie



Series: bits & pieces [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Drabble, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-31 00:05:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19038310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: Enjolras moves to Paris for university. Combeferre is there to greet him off the diligence.





	arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Just working out some headcanons, have some cute canon-era friendship fun pre-barricade day. No triggers as far as I know.

**Paris | 1828**

Paris is beyond words, Enjolras thinks, as the diligence eases into the city through the Porte d’Italie, maneuvering through the crush of carters trying to pay their fees at the office of the Farmers-General. Everyone is shouting, there is the jingle of harness, the clop of hooves, the rumble of cartwheels. There is a constant stop-start motion, jerking back and forth, and one of the ladies sitting next to him instinctively grabs onto his sleeve for support. He restrains a snap, lets her cling, and turns his head to see what he can out of the windows. He’d have much preferred to ride on top, away from the inane giggling of the small company of middle-aged women and their husbands and children that have been his travelling companions from Melun, but those had already been reserved by the time he arrived, and he hadn’t wanted to wait for the next coach.

The diligence executes a wide curve, and then gathers speed. He hears the indignant shriek of a chicken forced out of the road, sees the vague shapes of people diving for the safety of the houses as the diligence rolls by. It’s not particularly sensible of the driver to go at such a breakneck pace in a populated area he thinks, hopes they are not going to mow anyone down. They finally haul to a stop just as nearby bells chime four o’clock, the sound shimmering in the air and through the half-open window. The woman who has been clutching his sleeve in a death grip lets go and gives him a queasy smile, her fashionably pale face tinged slightly green. He gives her a brusque nod and gets up to open the door, offering a hand down to the ladies who disembark directly after him. The driver and the coachman are manhandling luggage down from the net attached to the roof. Enjolras isolates his, thanks the driver, and takes a moment to get himself together, staring down the street of tall, stone houses. He can see the dome of St-Genevieve - the Revolutionary Pantheon, he thinks with not a small amount of pleasure- and the spire of Notre-Dame cathedral spearing the sky on its point. Around him, people throng - all kinds of people, students, he supposes from their lazy walk and finer clothes, working people, and a gang of street-children hanging off the railings of the Luxembourg gardens. When he was here as a child, those gardens weren’t open to the public.

Someone knocks against his shoulder, and he comes back into himself, hauling his bag up and looking around for a street sign. Combeferre had written with the address, and he had consulted a map before he had left the hotel at Melun this morning, so it can’t be that difficult…

“Hello, stranger,” a very familiar voice says close to his ear. “Can I help you with your bags?”

Enjolras starts, turns. Combeferre has somehow materialised from the crowd without Enjolras noticing, and he’s just standing, smiling in that wonderful understated way of his, and _god,_ Enjolras is so glad to see him.

“Yes you may,” he says, for want of anything better, feeling a returning smile tug insistently at his mouth. His heart is full. He’s here, he’s finally here, finally out of Marseille and away from all the ridiculous peacocking of adolescent boys in the lycee and his mother’s rules and strictures and the loss of his father and grandfather, finally here when he can begin to make a difference.

Combeferre takes the winter overcoat and the bag of books from Enjolras’ shoulder. “I brought the Condorcet from my grandfather’s library, and a few other things I think you might enjoy,” Enjolras says, taking Combeferre’s free arm and beginning to walk alongside his best friend. They go past a cafe, men loitering around and drinking from bottles and debating things, hands and arms and newspapers flying everywhere. “Mother wished to sell most of it.”

“I’m surprised she even knew the place existed,” Combeferre remarks.

“Me too. I managed to smuggle most of it out, though. Your parents were willing co-conspirators.”

Combeferre squeezes his arm. “Are they well? I haven’t had a reply from my last letter yet.”

“Your cousin Jeanne is engaged, and your parents appear to like the gentleman in question. The shop is doing well, and your mother bade me to tell you that she is doing much better these days, and it looks as though she should be up and about in no time.”

A heavy sigh. “That’s a relief.”

“I told you she would be fine. Your mother is never one to lie down and accept anything.”

“True,” Combeferre laughs.

“But how have you been? I thought you had class today.”

Combeferre launches into a long description of the dissection they performed today which apparently he’d just finished by the time Enjolras’ diligence was due in. Enjolras listens to it all, delighted by how happy Combeferre sounds. Combeferre turns them off into a little side-street, and then another one. Enjolras finds his eyes skipping to the beggar on the corner, the rag pickers bent double under their burdens, the grisettes chattering and laughing past them. “It’s not the nicest neighbourhood,” Combeferre begins, but Enjolras squeezes his arm.

“What my mother doesn’t know shan’t hurt her. She hasn’t been to Paris in years. I care more about being near you.”

“I’m glad, my friend.” Combeferre hands the bags back to Enjolras to unlock the front door. Enjolras follows him into the stone passageway, greets the concierge, and follows Combeferre up the stairs. “I am on the fourth floor,” he says. “You are on the third. The landlord and lady live on the first floor, a young lawyer and his family live on the second, and a pair of grisettes up in the attic. Maribel and Esme. They’re quite good company. Esme’s very republican too, knows quite a few people.”

“I look forward to meeting them.”

Combeferre gives him a smile, and hands over the key. “Here you are. I need to go and write up my notes from the practical lesson this afternoon, but I shall call on you for dinner, about seven?”

Enjolras puts his bags down and pulls Combeferre into a brief hug. Combeferre’s arms tighten around him, and he presses his face into the shoulder of Combeferre’s coat, breathing in the smell of rain and Paris and soap. “Sounds perfect.”

They step back. “Adieu, mon ami,” Combeferre says. “Welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come cry about barricade day with me on Tumblr: @barefoot-pianist.


End file.
